


Secrets

by shinychimera, Yeomanrand



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multiple Personalities, POV Male Character, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-14
Updated: 2010-06-14
Packaged: 2017-10-10 03:11:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinychimera/pseuds/shinychimera, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeomanrand/pseuds/Yeomanrand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Noah Bennet wakes up and doesn't quite know where he is; René is there to reassure him.</p><p>Written for the "Multiple Personalities (Always There)" square on Yeomanrand's <img/><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/hc_bingo/"><strong>hc_bingo</strong></a> card.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secrets

When Noah Bennet wakes up this time, he's lying on his side, on a coverlet that smells of cigarettes and cheap sex and other things he probably doesn't want to think about too hard. A motel, somewhere, if he has to hazard a guess. At least he has his clothes on. And his shoes. And his glasses, pressing into the bridge of his nose.

Mostly, though, he knows he's not home with his wife because Mr. Muggles isn't barking in his face or tugging on his shoelaces.

He doesn't try to move; he wearily skips over _Where am I?_ in favor of _What's the last thing I remember?_

_We did what had to be done_, the silky voice tells him, though no images follow on its heels, no sense of what necessity has been addressed. They'd been hunting for the Company, he suddenly remembers, he and René. He sees flashes of dark angry eyes, the file they'd been sent, flame, shattering ice but he can't quite put everything together.

_You'll remember someday, Noah_, the sly, familiar voice says. He hates it, he's always hated the way it lives in the back of his head, full of suggestion and innuendo like Iago whispering to Othello. Whenever he wakes up somewhere strange, drained and disoriented, he knows he'll hear it and if he could just get his thoughts together quick enough, during this strange limbo that comes _after_, he feels like he might understand what it means. _For now, stop worrying and learn to love the bomb_.

A sharp scent memory: the bitter cordite echo of a fired gun. Noah groans.

"Noah...?" a stranger's voice speaks, low and gravelly and blessedly _outside_ his head. He opens his eyes, lifts his chin slowly, peers down at the hand on his sleeve, dark on grey in the nearly-lightless room. _René?_

"No one died. Not this time."

"So you do speak," Noah says, frowning. He pushes over onto his back, hissing, suddenly aware that he _hurts_.

René nods patiently, as if Noah has said this before. His gaze is distant, watchful. "Our quarry was safely contained. You need to rest, now."

The hand lifts to remove the horn-rimmed glasses from his face. He's not exactly relieved, but he is exhausted and God help him but he trusts René, so he lets his eyes slide closed beneath the soft fingers that linger on his temples.

~~~~~

René has stretched out on the bed, back against the headboard, and is reaching over to switch on the reading lamp when the man lying next to him speaks.

"You can make him forget," he says, "but _I_ will always remember." It is Noah's voice as it always is, and yet so very, very different: rougher, more cynically amused, less burdened.

"I know, Seth," René acknowledges, calm and sad. "But you bear for him what he cannot yet bear for himself. It is better this way. One day, he will need neither of us."

He straightens up, sets the back of his hand lightly against Seth's cheek. "The body needs rest, _cher_. Let Noah have it."

A snort, a sly sideways glance, and then silence. René watches the man's body settle into sleep, and bows his head.

His job is to help Noah keep his secrets. He is very good at what he does.

**Author's Note:**

> No, I don't know why my brain latched on to Noah for this prompt. And I usually prefer to keep a piece this short in one person's POV, but this one just demanded the shift.


End file.
